The Fall Of Alex Tsai?

ALEX TSAI, until recently the director of the Central Policy Committee of the KMT and a party spokesman, has been embroiled in controversy in past days with charges against Tsai of embezzling 300 million NTD from the sale of the Central Motion Pictures Corporation (CMPC) under the pretext of capital reductions. This occurs not too long after Tsai announced that he would be withdrawing from the KMT and Taiwanese politics because he had been named chair of the Jiangsu Min’An Automotive Company and would subsequently be moving to China in a sudden move which left many puzzled. In retrospect, one vaguely wonders whether Tsai, knowing he was under legal investigation, was hoping to escape charges in Taiwan as soon as possible.

As a result of present charges, Tsai has been detained and questioned by police, his wife Queena Hung has been placed under house arrest and restricted from leaving the country after being released on bail, and residences of Tsai’s have been searched. Nine other individuals, including Tsai’s father-in-law, have been questioned.

At the time, the KMT was accused of selling CMPC off to party loyalists in knowledge that its party assets might one day become a liability, and in that way attempting to pass of its party assets as now in private hands. However, adding to longstanding accusations that the KMT’s party assets were in the control of select party elites and that this why the KMT leadership is so loathe to shed KMT party assets even when this proves a political liability for a KMT unable to shed its image of entrenched political corruption, this is not the first time Tsai has been accused of embezzling money from CMPC.

Tsai using his cell phone while being questioned at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Photo credit: Liberty Times

As a result, Tsai was ordered to return 170 million to CMPC last May by the Supreme Court. But either Tsai continued in embezzling after last May or more embezzling may have occurred on Tsai’s part than previously discovered, seeing as there was past contention between Tsai, Chuang, Lor, and Gou about how much exactly Tsai embezzled or may have stole. Gou had in fact claimed in the past that Tsai kept the entirety of the 580 million NTD Apollo would have received from the 1.5 billion NTD capital reduction that Tsai claims to have applied for in 2006 and Chuang claiming that Lor stole the entirety of her 1.2 billion stock in the company. Depending on how much Tsai stole, if this includes the entirety of Lor’s stock, this may actually be comparable to or exceed the amount of money that former president Chen Shui-Bian is accused of embezzling after his term. It is a sign of the ability of Taiwan’s wealthy to cloud their wealth and the murkiness of financial institutions in Taiwan that such conflicting claims regarding how much Tsai took have not been cleared up at this point.

It is a further question how Tsai may have used his authority as representative of Apollo to shuffle money between himself and Apollo and how much money was transferred exactly. This time around, Tsai is also accused of using Chintsuan Company, owned by his wife Queena Hung, in order to launder money for the benefit of himself, Hung, and his father-in-law, Hung Hsin-hsing.

A Politician Emblematic Of KMT Hypocrisy?

TSAI IS ONE of the most notable figures of the KMT, as a KMT arch-reactionary and deep Blue ideologue never willing to shy away from controversy. Tsai is a former legislator before he gave that up to become director of the Central Policy Committee of the KMT and party spokesman, as well as having previously served as campaign manager for Sean Lien’s run for Taipei mayor.

Photo credit: UDN

Given Tsai’s background, views, and actions, he is perhaps an archetypical example of the “Black Gold” politics of KMT financial corruption involving illicit party assets, formerly state-owned institutions, and widespread graft and nepotism by KMT politicians, if not its most definitive example in the present. Unsurprisingly, allies of Tsai such as Hung Hsiu-Chu have attempted to defend him by claiming that legal action against Tsai is merely political persecution by the DPP conducted under the flag of its targeting of illicit KMT party assets. Although it is possible that Tsai will simply shrug this off and continue his political career as though nothing happened, as occurred following the scandal regarding the 170 million NTD he was already forced to return last year, this seems like hitching one’s wagons to the entirely wrong horse if the KMT is to find any way of breaking free of its image of internal corruption.

The taint on the KMT from its attempts to defend Tsai would probably be considerable and, if the DPP is smart, it will attempt to use Tsai as an example to prove that its targeting of KMT party assets is far from political persecution, but that high-ranking members of the KMT such as Tsai are corrupt, indicating how graft within the KMT is deeply rooted. We shall see as to whether the DPP is able to accomplish this.

Brian Hioe was one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance writer on social movements and politics, and occasional translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018.

About New Bloom

New Bloom is an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific, founded in Taiwan in 2014 in the wake of the Sunflower Movement. We seek to put local voices in touch with international discourse, beginning with Taiwan.